The social and clinical impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on the Strasbourg lung transplant cohort: A single-center retrospective cohort study.

The clinical and social impacts of the COVID-19 epidemic on lung transplant (LTx) recipients remain poorly known. We aimed to evaluate its social, clinical, and behavioral consequences on the LTx patients followed in Strasbourg university hospital. A questionnaire was used to collect details concerning patients' lifestyles, their protection methods used to avoid COVID-19 contamination, and clinical infection-related information for March 2020.

Repeated Look-up Tables.

Efficient hardware implementations routinely approximate mathematical functions with look-up tables, while keeping the error of the approximation under control. For a certain class of commonly occurring 1D functions, namely monotonically increasing or decreasing functions, we found that it is possible to approximate such functions by repeated application of a very low resolution 1D look-up table. There are many advantages to cascading multiple identical LUTs, including the promise of a very simple hardware design and the use of standard linear interpolation.

Unemployment, unemployment duration, and health: selection or causation?

This study aims at disentangling the causal effects of unemployment on physical and mental health from the selection of the unhealthy into unemployment. To identify causal effects, it explores hypotheses concerning how physical and mental health deterioration gain additional momentum with a longer duration of unemployment. In contrast, mere selection into unemployment implies time-constant effects of unemployment on physical and mental health.

Migration and the Partner Market: How Gender-Selective Relocations Affect Regional Mating Chances in Germany.

The study explores the consequences of gender-selective internal migration for regional mating chances in Germany, comparing different cohorts as well as different types of regions. Indicators of the partner market based on time series of the official German regional population statistics are combined with indicators of migration and on regional economic, educational, and settlement structures. Instead of the simple sex ratio, which is the standard measure for partner market conditions in previous research, the study at hand uses the availability ratio suggested by Goldman et al.

Increased Sensory Processing Atypicalities in Parents of Multiplex ASD Families Versus Typically Developing and Simplex ASD Families.

Recent studies have suggested that sensory processing atypicalities may share genetic influences with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). To further investigate this, the adolescent/adult sensory profile (AASP) questionnaire was distributed to 85 parents of typically developing children (P-TD), 121 parents from simplex ASD families (SPX), and 54 parents from multiplex ASD families (MPX). After controlling for gender and presence of mental disorders, results showed that MPX parents significantly differed from P-TD parents in all four subscales of the AASP.

[Selection or Better Service - Why are those with Private Health Insurance Healthier than those Covered by the Public Insurance System?].

From previous research we know that privately insured people in Germany are healthier than those covered by the compulsory public health insurance system. Whether this difference is due to a selection of healthier people into the private health insurance or a causal effect in the sense that private health insurance better helps their clients to stay in good health than public insurances do is not clear. Using panel regression based on the German Socioeconomic Panel (GSOEP), we show that health status is better for individuals who have bought a private health insurance certificate since 2002 compared to those who remained within the public insurance system.

Friendship networks and the social structure of opportunities for contact and interaction.

This paper explores the Partnermarktsurvey to analyze how the size and composition of individuals' friendship networks are associated with the opportunities for contact and interaction provided by individuals' immediate social environment. The size and composition of individuals' social environment are strongly reflected in the size and composition of their network of friends. Several properties of an individual's foci of activity help to transform mere contacts into opportunities for interaction.

How the Brain Process Stimulus-Response Conflict? New Insights from Lateralized Readiness Potentials Scalp Topography and Reaction Times.

Stimulus-Response Compatibility (SRC) refers to the fact that some tasks are performed easier and better than others because of the way stimuli and responses are paired with each other. To assess the brain responses to stimulus-response conflicts, we investigated the behavioral (accuracy and Reaction Times: RTs) as well as the physiological response (Lateralized Readiness Potentials: LRP) modulations in a positional blocked and a conditional mixed design in twelve university students. Results revealed that the performance was less accurate and the RTs, as well as the LRP onset, were delayed under the mixed conditional design.

The development of passive auditory novelty processing.

In a passive auditory oddball study the development of novelty processing was examined in 5-7 (N=26), 8-9 (N=31), 10-12 (N=30), and 18-29 (N=35) years olds. Even though the main goal of this study was to replicate the findings of an earlier one, a shorter and simplified paradigm was used in order to gather developmental reference data for non-responsive patient groups that are unable to give an overt response. As expected, this adapted procedure replicated the findings regarding the development of passive novel sound processing.

Broader autism phenotype in parents of autistic children: reality or myth?

The finding that relatives of individuals with autism show mild autistic traits is referred to as the broader autism phenotype (BAP). In the current study, 25 parents with a child with high-functioning autism and 25 parents with typically developed children were compared on: (1) the Block Design Test, (2) the Autism-Spectrum Quotient (AQ), and (3) a reaction time task to examine reflexive covert visual orienting to social (eyes) and non-social (arrows) cues. The parent groups were scored similar on the Block Design Test and the AQ.

Development and gender in the P50 paradigm.

Objective: The relative change in amplitude of the P50 component in response to the second click compared to the first one is commonly thought to index sensory gating. Despite numerous P50 gating studies, reports about its development are scarce. The present study examined the development and gender differences of P50 sensory gating.

The development of visual- and auditory processing in Rett syndrome: an ERP study.

Rett syndrome is a neurodevelopmental disorder that occurs almost exclusively in females. It is characterized by a progressive loss of intellectual functioning and motor skills, and the development of stereotypic hand movements, that occur after a period of normal development. Event-related potentials were recorded to a passive auditory- and visual oddball task in 17 females with Rett syndrome aged between 2 and 60 years, and age-matched controls.

Atypical visual orienting to gaze- and arrow-cues in adults with high functioning autism.

The present study investigates visual orienting to directional cues (arrow or eyes) in adults with high functioning autism (n = 19) and age matched controls (n = 19). A choice reaction time paradigm is used in which eye- or arrow direction correctly (congruent) or incorrectly (incongruent) cues target location. In typically developing participants, the visual orienting reflex is longer for eyes than for arrows.

Differences in behavioural phenotype between parental deletion and maternal uniparental disomy in Prader-Willi syndrome: an ERP study.

Objective: Paternal deletion and maternal uniparental disomy are the principal genetic subtypes associated with Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS). Recent clinical findings suggest differences in phenotype between these subtypes. The present experimental study addresses this issue using a cognitive psycho-physiological setup.

Developmental differences in behavioral and event-related brain responses associated with response preparation and inhibition in a go/nogo task.

The present study investigated developmental trends in response inhibition and preparation by studying behavior and event-related brain activity in a cued go/nogo task, administered to nine-year-old children and young adults. Hits, false alarms, inattention, and impulsivity scores and ERP measures of inhibition (fronto-central nogo-N2 and P3), target selection (parietal go-nogo P3 difference), and response preparation (contingent negative variation; CNV) were collected. Higher false alarm and impulsivity scores and the absence of the fronto-central nogo P3 all suggest a developmental lag in response inhibition in children.

Multi-modal P3 deflation of event-related brain activity in Prader-Willi syndrome.

Adults with Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS) and normal controls participated in a cognitive psychophysiology study in which event-related brain activity was recorded in a visual and auditory oddball task. In both tasks, participants were instructed to press a hand key to a target stimulus. All participants had successful task performance but persons with PWS had more target omissions than controls in the visual oddball task.

Auditory attention processing in 5-year-old children born preterm: evidence from event-related potentials.

The assumption that children born preterm have difficulties in maintaining active attention was tested in passive and active tasks. Twenty 5-year-old children born preterm at 26 to 32 weeks gestational age were compared with 20 children born at term, matched for age and IQ, using an auditory paradigm. In the passive task participants had to watch a videotape of a cartoon and ignore auditory stimuli.

Perceptual processing among high-functioning persons with autism.

Two tasks were used to assess the processing of whole versus parts of objects in a group of high-functioning children and adolescents with autism (N = 11) and a comparison group of typically developing peers (N = 11) matched for chronological age and IQ. In the first task, only the children with autism showed a global advantage, and the two groups showed similar interference between levels. In the second task, the children with autism, despite longer RTs, showed similar performance to the comparison group with regard to the effect of goodness on visual parsing.

[Effectiveness of secondary preventive programs for patients with asthma and rhinitis in the baking industry].

Since 1992 the German industrial professional association for the food industry and gastronomy (Berufsgenossenschaft Nahrungsmittel und Gaststätten), which is responsible for statutory accident insurance has been offering a specific patient education programme to bakers suffering from occupationally induced obstructive pulmonary disease or allergic rhino-conjunctivitis, who do not quit their jobs and wish to continue working as bakers. The programme aims at preventing aggravation of the disease 74 male bakers with a mean duration of illness of 10 years on entering the programme were examined between 1 and 5 years (mean: 2.9) after participating in the patient education seminar.

Extreme prematurity in healthy 5-year-old children: a re-analysis of sex effects on event-related brain activity.

A male disadvantage has been reported in several outcome studies of children born preterm. Twenty-two healthy premature children (10 girls, 12 boys) born between 25 and 28 weeks of gestation and 20 controls born full-term (10 boys, 10 girls) were matched on socioeconomical status and age. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded by using 14 electrodes in a visual oddball task, with 75% frequent and 25% rare stimuli.

A topographical ERP study of healthy premature 5-year-old children in the auditory and visual modalities.

The aim of this research is to study the impact of extreme prematurity on the cognitive development of the child as assessed at age 5 years 9 months. Our samples include 15 healthy prematures born between 25 and 28 weeks of gestational age carefully matched with 15 full-term controls. In the first experiment, two different auditory stimuli were presented to the subjects who listened passively without instruction.

Scalp topography of event-related brain potentials and cognitive transition during childhood.

This study examined the relation between cognitive development and the ontogenesis of event-related brain potentials (ERPs) during childhood. First, the level of cognitive development was assessed in girls between 5 and 7 years of age with a standard Piagetian conservation kit. Then these children performed 2 experimental tasks: a visual selective attention (oddball) task and an experimental analogue of the Piagetian conservation of liquid quantity task.